June 25, 2012

Stops and Frisks Could Cost Taxpayers Tens of Millions of Dollars

It appears the Stop-and-Frisk policy of Michael Bloomberg may cost us dearly in the wallet.

The man who cares so much about the bottom line is willing to sacrifice big bucks (yours and mine) when it comes to flouting the rights of young Black and Latino men.

More than 600,000 stops are conducted a year by Bloomberg and police commissioner Ray Kelly -- the vast majority of stopees guilty only of being out while dark.

Bloomberg and Kelly figure, Hey, whaddo we care about the dignity of nothin' kids who aren't going anyplace in life anyways?

(That's the way Bloomberg talks when he's gettin down with the working class. Sort of the way he sounds - vernacular switched - when he hablows with Latinos in, you know, their language, so's they can understand; and how he rhymes when he's with Black folks, Jesse Jackson-style, as when he pleaded recently that Stop and Frisk should be mended but not ended.)

Donna Lieberman explains to us here that the city's Stop-and-Frisk policy may mean a court decision, or settlement, against the city, perhaps in the tens of millions of dollars.

Her group, you see, the New York Civil Liberties Union, has filed suit against the city for the Stop policy, which Lieberman - or Libertiesman, some say - calls one of the most abusive and racially discriminatory city policies of recent times.

Lieberman consented to this Skype interview, even knowing the limitations of the video quality. Blame for that is here. Lieberman stresses that the money figures she uses are potential, as opposed to likely. She addressed the issue at our prodding.